In a claustrophobic venue, under the unblinking gaze of two video cameras, in front of infinitely repeating video images and a wedding dress and suit laid out on a table like Chekhov’s famous mantelpiece-gun, a man and a woman talk—and something is not right here. He’s bumbling and apologetic and contagiously nervous; she’s preternaturally cheerful and yet telegraphs danger. Jaunty jazz plays in the background, and, somehow, that’s wrong too, and you cannot look away.
Nor should you, because a fascinating mystery is being capably unravelled, with information fed out, initially, at exactly the right rate to sustain peak tension. Brooklyn Boukather and Daniel Barney Newton, as the central couple, are both superb actors, delicately weaving a narrative out of disorientation, with exquisite control. And Frazier Bailey’s writing is often lyrical and sometimes startlingly beautiful, especially in Boukather’s lines describing the object of her grief.
At first, the fascination is in trying to determine just how mad Boukather’s character is, and how far she might be willing to go. As tenderness infuses the plot, however, her delusions break containment and become a deliciously compelling folie à deux.
The story moves briskly, and it’s quite a lot of dramatic action to fit within 65 minutes. The superb pacing falters in the off-kilter acceleration toward the end, with momentous decisions made on too flimsy bases to feel fully motivated. Other character foibles and hints of backstory cry out for exploration. Strangewife is a full-length idea, crammed into the confines of a one-act structure.
But these are minor quibbles. In a festival of dramas that often chase the universal and try to extend grand moral pronouncements about the meaning of life, it can feel miraculous to be offered a microscope instead, and through it glimpse previously unseen and beautifully-constructed worlds centred around the minutiae of human interaction. Strangewife is gorgeously-crafted old-school storytelling that will linger in your thoughts for days. Highly recommended.
